Environmental crisis

My review of this week’s WOMAD world music festival in Wiltshire, looking particularly at how, although it was a wonderful festival, the global environmental crisis hung over proceedings, as, to my mind, it hovers over everything these days, demanding that we get involved in bringing down the entire suicidal capitalist system that is destroying us.

In this year’s article marking the summer solstice, I contrast how the free festival pioneers urged revellers to “leave no trace”, in contrast to today’s throwaway culture, and, looking at the bigger picture, I urge anyone interested in the cycle of the seasons that Stonehenge so vividly represents to urgently get involved in environmental activism to try to prevent the worst effects of an already unfolding and unprecedented man-made environmental crisis that requires the whole of humanity to grasp that, collectively, we must all work out how to “leave no trace” if we are to sustain our existence on earth.

It’s 34 years since a truly disgraceful event in modern British history – the Battle of the Beanfield, when police under Margaret Thatcher violently decommissioned a convoy of modern-day nomads, environmental protestors and anarchists trying to get to Stonehenge to establish what would have been the 12th annual Stonehenge Free Festival. 34 years on, I discuss a thread that runs from the free festival movement to Extinction Rebellion, the movement of now, which, powerfully but sadly, has an urgency that no previous protest movement has been able to call upon.

As campaigners withdraw from a protest camp outside the bitterly-contested site of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, I look at how the ‘regeneration’ industry, of which Tidemill is a part, is coming under increasing scrutiny from environmental campaigners demanding an end to practices that contribute to climate change.

My pledge of commitment to the struggle to save ourselves and much of life on earth from the worst effects of man-made catastrophic climate change and species extinction, which is already underway. With thanks to those who have recently led me to this commitment: Dahr Jamail, Extinction Rebellion, Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough. Please get involved!

It’s the fourth day of Extinction Rebellion’s occupation of four sites in central London, as part of a demand for immediate political change to tackle the already ongoing global environmental catastrophe. If you can get involved at all, please do. As Extinction Rebellion explain, this is an unprecedented climate emergency, and we need to do what we can to change the way we operate immediately.

Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo, co-director, We Stand With Shaker. Also, singer and songwriter (The Four Fathers) and photographer (The State of London). Email Andy Worthington